How Zakarpattia Hungarians view the Kyiv-Budapest conflict
The conflict between Kyiv and Budapest has flared up even before Russia’s war against Ukraine, in particular over the issue of Hungarian passports to residents of Zakarpattia Oblast. Hungary, for its part, was unhappy with the adopted Law on Education, accusing Ukraine of violating the language rights of ethnic Hungarians in the region.
This discourse has not disappeared since the beginning of the full-scale invasion: Budapest admits that they are blocking Ukraine’s alignment with the European Union and NATO, largely over the language issue. And in general, relations between the two countries have become even more tense due to numerous anti-Ukraine statements by Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán who refuses to call Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a war criminal and holds official meetings with the Russian leader.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times wrote on Aug. 9, 2023, that the Hungarian minority in Ukraine disavows Hungarian leader over his pro-Russian stance.
NV spoke with two Zakarpattia Hungarians about their views on life, war, politics, and the future.
Bandy Sholtes
Ukrainian writer of Hungarian origin, resides in Uzhhorod
I was a fixer for many foreign journalists who wrote about the Hungarian minority and with whom we traveled to the settlements in Zakarpattia Oblast where mostly Hungarians live. There are no official data, but the residents themselves believe that about half of the locals left, mostly women with children.
Even before the full-scale invasion, an arrangement when men worked abroad, and their families lived in Zakarpattia Oblast was quite widespread. With the war, many families simply left to reunite abroad.
At the same time, many elderly people have decided to stay as they’re more attached to their home and land and don’t want to leave.
As for television and radio, I think Budapest’s influence on the Hungarians in Zakarpattia Oblast has remained at the pre-war level. Those who consumed Hungarian media before Feb. 24, 2022, continue to do so. But again, this is more about elderly people watching their favorite television channels.
If we talk about middle-aged and younger people, of course, they pay more attention to the Ukrainian media, where they get the most important and latest news about the events at the front and in Ukraine as a whole.
I took part in a project by the Political Capital sociological institute [located in Hungary], which examines the impact of Orbán’s regime on the social life and political discourse of Hungarians living outside Hungary. This study covers the countries with a Hungarian minority, including Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, and Ukraine. And the results show that the influence of Orbán’s media in Ukraine is the weakest among all other countries.
For example, this indicator is 57% in Slovakia, 24% in Romania, and only 8% in Ukraine.
The project actually demonstrates how the narratives of Orbán’s media are spreading in these countries. That is, some old woman watches Hungarian television, but how can she then spread this information? Only in conversations with neighbors. And when it comes to young people, they can spread these narratives via the Internet, reposting and posting on social networks. But a significant part of these young people left Ukraine, so now there are few who can spread such information. And the remaining part simultaneously consumes Ukrainian media, so they will already compare and analyze the news.
It should be noted there is a difference between the perception of information by ethnic Hungarians in towns and villages in Zakarpattia Oblast. That is, trust in what the villagers hear on Hungarian television is likely to be higher than that of the urban population.
There are entire Hungarian villages in Zakarpattia Oblast, where people live in their own “bubbles.” And everyone has Ukrainian friends or relatives in Berehove or Uzhhorod, with whom they constantly communicate. In addition, more people there are somehow connected with volunteering, they have friends at the front. This also has a significant impact on their perception of the world.
In general, if compared with the 1990s or 2000s, the percentage of Hungarians in Zakarpattia Oblast who are fluent in or at least understand the Ukrainian language has definitely increased.
Ukrainian Hungarians are unhappy with the confrontation between Kyiv and Budapest. Moreover, it doesn’t depend on whether they tend to believe Orbán’s propaganda or not.
Most Hungarians always emphasize in their conversations that they’ve lived alongside Ukrainians, Roma, and representatives of other ethnic groups for decades and generations, and everything was always peaceful and good with them. And they say they don’t want any conflicts.
The mentality of Zakarpattia Hungarians and Hungarians in Hungary differs on some level. And this directly affects the relationship between them.
There are examples when Hungarians from Ukraine, who have been living in Hungary for several years, still communicate mainly in their Zakarpattia circle, while the locals keep a little apart from them.
I’ve met local Hungarians who left after Feb. 24, 2022, and have already returned home. But whether Hungarians may return en masse to Zakarpattia Oblast will depend on how much time they spend abroad. Each month spent there increases the likelihood that a person will stay there in the future.
My subjective opinion is that half or even more of those who left are unlikely to return. Of course, a person has a motivation to come back if his elderly parents are left here. If there is no one here, it changes everything. That is, this issue is not only related to the war, but also to the family circumstances of each family.
Zholt Levrints
Director of the Druzhba stadium in Berehove, president of the Beregvidek children’s youth football club
There is almost no Hungarian diaspora left in Zakarpattia Oblast. If earlier [before the full-scale war] Hungarians were the majority in Berehove, today there are maybe 20% of that number left. People moved to Hungary en masse and took their children away, because everyone is afraid of what will happen next.
We’ve also relocated our football club’s base to Hungary. All the children have moved, and they live, study, and continue to play football here.
I left on the first day of the war, Feb. 24, 2022, and now I’m in Hungary. I cannot come home [to Ukraine]. To be more precise, I can come, but then I can’t leave. And my wife stayed in Berehove since we didn’t want to leave the house.
It seems to me that in most cases the wives live at home, while their husbands have left as they’re afraid of mobilization.
To be honest, I wouldn’t want to go to war either. I don’t think I could shoot other people. Although who knows, maybe I would be able to at that moment. But I wasn’t born to fight, that’s for sure.
In general, this war shouldn’t have happened. I don’t understand how war is possible in the 21st century.
I agree that Orbán is also wrong [referring to the Hungarian prime minister’s pro-Russian rhetoric]. He’s wrong when he doesn’t say that Putin is an aggressor. But even if he says that, what will change? I think nothing will change. It’s just that people will probably find it easier that Orbán has admitted it. But the war will continue, and people will still die. However, of course, he’s wrong to not say this, to not recognize Putin as an aggressor.
I’m sure that Hungary isn’t going to take Ukrainian territories through aggression.
But even if we assume that Budapest would like to do so, what next? Hungarians in Zakarpattia Oblast made up about 10% of the population before the war. If Hungary annexes these lands, what will it do with the rest of the people in this territory who aren’t Hungarians?
Although that’s not even the point, I just don’t think that Budapest can go for that. I don’t even hear a rumor here that Hungary would like to take Ukrainian lands. Of course, there are some inadequate people who create specific websites and write about “Great Hungary” there. But in this way politicians just want to divide people because then it’s easier to manipulate them.
And if we talk about the fact that Hungary dreams of taking Zakarpattia Oblast, we can assume that Poland also plans to take back Halychyna [or Galicia, a region in western Ukraine]. But this is nonsense!
I’ll return to Ukraine when the war ends. My wife wants us to move to Hungary permanently, but I say: no, Berehove is my home, my town. I really like living there. And all residents have always coexisted very peacefully and friendly there.
The military war may be swinging in our favor, but the information war continues.
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